Alonso crowned youngest champion

McLaren-Mercedes may have dominated the Brazilian grand prix yesterday but Fernando Alonso was not particularly bothered. Third place was good enough to earn the six points he needed to become the youngest world champion in the history of formula one. Kimi Raikkonen, his closest challenger, did not have the consolation of winning the 17th round of the series as he came home 2.5sec behind his team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya.

McLaren's first one-two finish in more than five years has put them ahead of Renault in the constructors' championship for the first time this season and that battle will not be resolved until the final races are run in Japan and China.

But for the moment it was all about Alonso and the result achieved in only his 68th grand prix, his third place seizing the world title from Michael Schumacher for the first time since 1999, when Mika Hakkinen won.

"It is difficult to put into words how this feels," said Alonso after finishing on the podium for the 13th time in 16 races this season. "The realisation began to dawn a few races ago that I might be able to maintain my points advantage over Kimi but you can never be sure. I knew that third would be good enough today but wanted to win.

"I kept pace with Montoya in the opening stages but after the pit stops, when Kimi got ahead, I realised I couldn't win. We didn't have the speed of the McLarens. For me it was a long race. But my motivation and concentration was kept going by keeping third from Michael [Schumacher], who was chasing me in the final part of the race. It's hard to keep your concentration when running on your own, but this helped. The final laps seemed to take for ever and it took a while for it to sink in once I came to a stop."

Emerson Fittipaldi, the man whose record Alonso beat, hailed his achievement. The Spaniard was 24 years, one month and 27 days old whereas Fittipaldi won his first title in 1972 aged 25 years, eight months and 29 days. "I have a lot of admiration for Alonso. Our careers are fairly similar because he also came very quickly into formula one," said the Brazilian.

"He is a driver with talent, ability and maturity; he manages to finish all his races. My record is going to be in good hands. Everything happened very quickly in my career. It was a very great honour for me to break Jim Clark's record [as youngest champion]," added Fittipaldi.

Renault's chief Flavio Briatore, who is also Alonso's manager, was full of praise for the driver he took to Minardi in 2001 for his formula one debut. "This year, Fernando's one mistake was in Canada [when he crashed out]," he said. "After that he has been fantastic. In the races he is terrific. Sometimes in the qualifying Kimi Raikkonen is quicker, but this year Kimi is fantastic as well.

"If you see the difference between Kimi and Juan Pablo Montoya, Kimi has an incredible feeling with this car. I mean, sometimes Kimi is really difficult to beat but we know that."

Alonso led through the first corner but Montoya outbraked the Renault at the end of the back straight on the first lap. The Spaniard then had to contend with the unsettling effect of a safety car on the track for one lap while wreckage from a three-car collision involving the Williams drivers and David Coulthard's Red Bull was cleared from the track.

Raikkonen paid the price for locking his brakes going into the first corner by starting from fifth. Alonso, who could have started from anywhere on the front two rows, found himself on the prime starting position for the fifth time in 2005. It was yet another example of how McLaren appeared to be giving Renault every assistance this season.

Perhaps stung by comments that Raikkonen and McLaren were the faster combination and would have won the title but for mechanical failures, Renault had introduced major revisions to the car's aerodynamic package for this race, as well as an upgrade for the V10 engine.

It was a gamble. "We were not going to relax," said Renault's technical director Bob Bell. "The guys at the factory [in Enstone, Oxfordshire] have worked so hard and it's paid off. The championship is a tribute to everyone in the team as well as Fernando, who has been absolutely brilliant this year and thoroughly deserves the title. But the constructors' championship is just as important to us as a team and we're going all-out to get it."

Alonso has not suffered a single mechanical failure this season, unlike his team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella, fifth yesterday, who seems to have borne the brunt of the team's bad luck. Alonso's car did not miss a beat throughout the 71 laps and the two-stop strategy was sufficient to maintain third place once Raikkonen had moved ahead during the first pit stop.

"I won the championship with maybe not the best car, so I am proud of what I did," said Alonso. "The fact that I have taken over the title from Michael Schumacher is a bonus. I came from a country with no tradition in F1. I had to fight my way alone. I have only had the help of two or three people in my career, no more."

Now that Alonso has won the title, it remains to be seen just who is the fastest driver/car during the free-for-all in the final two races of the championship.